United States v. Marienfeld

116 F. Supp. 634, 45 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 461, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2277
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedNovember 23, 1953
DocketNo. 27064
StatusPublished

This text of 116 F. Supp. 634 (United States v. Marienfeld) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Marienfeld, 116 F. Supp. 634, 45 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 461, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2277 (E.D. Mo. 1953).

Opinion

HULEN, District Judge.

In presenting motion for new trial defendant complained of: (1) failure to sustain motion to dismiss on defendant’s embezzlement theory; (2) failure to admit his Exhibit 72; (3) the giving to the jury, to have with them when considering their verdict, the three papers marked Exhibits A, B and C, prepared by the Court; (4) refusal to admit testimony as to defendant’s attempt, after he was indicted, to have Stokely-Van Camp recognize he owed them money (including the “income” claimed by the Government to have been omitted from defendant’s tax return to evade taxes).

The defendant was in the business of selling beef and pork dt wholesale under the name of Mar Meat Company, and in his meat operations engaged in a boning operation of beef and pork carcasses delivered to him by the Stokely-Van Camp Company.1 Stokely had a contract with the Government to put up canned meat rations for the Army. It used the boned meat for that purpose. After defendant boned the meat delivered to him by Stokely, the meat was shipped to Stokely for canning. For the boning operation defendant received payment from Stokély on a pound basis. Stokely furnished the packing materials, paid the freight,, and paid the storage charges on boned meat that went to cold storage.

In the boning operation there were certain by-products that could not be used in Army rations. Defendant was authorized by Stokely to sell these byproducts for the “account” of Stokely. The by-products were “bones, suet, kidneys, skin, shank meat, ox joints and tenderloin.” Defendant did sell these. The tenderloin, in some instances, was converted by defendant into hamburger before sale. In making hamburger, suet was added. Stokely did not authorize or have knowledge of the use of by-products, by defendant, to make and sell hamburger. Much of Stokely’s meat after boning went to cold storage. The tenderloin which defendant made into hamburger was, for the most part, also placed in storage. Stokely’s boned meat was placed in storage in its name, as Stokely had directed. The hamburger made from tenderloin was put in cold storage by defendant in his name without the knowledge of Stokely.

Defendant, needing more money than he could honestly make, conceived a plan to get some of it out of the boning operation being done for Stokely. Defendant proceeded to sell a part of the by-products and withheld information of such sales from Stokely by keeping and sending false records to Stokely. Income from such sales went into defendant’s, personal bank account and was used by him for personal purposes. All customers required a record of their purchases. Defendant furnished such a record by using “dray tickets,” but kept off his office records any reference to. such sales. The purchasers of meat products were unaware of defendant’s fraudulent scheme. Defendant used dray tickets in each sale involved in his [637]*637fraud on Stokely. The dray tickets so used, unlike those used in legitimate transactions, were unnumbered. Defendant’s bookkeeper testified to the practice. Defendant did likewise. The bookkeeper testified that at defendant’s direction, when money came into the office, collected on the unnumbered dray tickets, he made no record of it but delivered the money to defendant. Defendant used the same method of getting funds in the sale of both converted byproducts of Stokely and unconverted byproducts of Stokely. He used the same kind of unnumbered dray tickets in sale of products that were not Stokely byproducts, which were not recorded on his books.

The income on these unrecorded dray tickets represents the income which the Government claims defendant failed to report in his income tax return, knowingly and with intent to defraud the Government of the tax on the sums of money. Such is the basis of this prosecution.

The record shows, and defendant admitted, that the income was not shown on defendant’s books. It was from defendant’s books that his tax returns were made by an auditor. The auditor testified he did not receive any unnumbered dray tickets from the defendant to use in making defendant’s returns for the period covered by the prosecution. This testimony was not disputed by the defendant while he was on the stand. And although defendant took the stand as a witness, he did not elect to testify to the events surrounding the preparation, signing and filing of the tax returns claimed by the Government to be fraudulent.

The defense was that the money claimed by the Government to be taxable income was from the sale of Stokely products and not income under the ruling of the Wilcox case (Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Wilcox, 327 U.S. 404, 66 S.Ct. 546, 90 L.Ed. 752). Ruling on this, defendant’s prime claim, leaves no basis for the collateral claims. Did defendant’s misappropriation of proceeds from sale of Stokely’s meat constitute embezzlement? Determination of this question requires an analysis of the relationship between defendant and Stokely under the facts as stated.

American Jurisprudence, Embezzlement § 20, states:

“Generally, when dealings between two persons create a relation of debtor and creditor, a failure of one of the parties to pay over money does not constitute the crime of embezzlement.
“Ordinarily, whether the relation of debtor and creditor exists depends upon the facts of the particular case. Where a principal acquiesces in his agent’s practice of depositing rents collected, in his general account, and of treating the deposits as his own, such a course of dealings may divest the principal of his specific property in the deposits and establish the relation of creditor and debtor between him and his agent.”

The crux of the issue here is: Where was the title to the money collected by the defendant from the sale of the meat products on the unnumbered dray tickets?

Defendant was authorized to sell the by-products for Stokely. In this capacity defendant was the bailee of these byproducts, and Stokely the bailor. The bailment was for the purpose of having the by-products sold as quickly as possible after the boning of the meat and avoid storage and shipping charges. When the by-products were sold, defendant sold them in his own name and received payment, usually in check. There was no provision in the contract between defendant and Stokely indicating that defendant was to hold the particular money collected and remit it to Stokely. On the contrary, the evidence shows defendant was not required to hold this money separate. It was deposited in the defendant’s account and mingled with money from the sale of defendant’s prod[638]*638ucts. Stokely knew this was the manner in which the defendant treated these funds. At least Stokely acquiesced in their being so handled. All Stokely did was to rely on defendant’s keeping accurate accounts of the proceeds of these sales. Stokely expected defendant to remit in accordance with these accounts. In this situation we think defendant became the debtor of Stokely for the amounts collected on the sale of Stokely’s by-products.

It is true, speaking generally, an agent is required to keep the funds of his principal separate from his own. If, however, he does not, and mingles his principal’s and his own funds, he becomes a debtor to his principal. This, we think, for two reasons.

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Related

Commissioner v. Wilcox
327 U.S. 404 (Supreme Court, 1946)
Rutkin v. United States
343 U.S. 130 (Supreme Court, 1952)
Busch v. United States
52 F.2d 79 (Eighth Circuit, 1931)

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Bluebook (online)
116 F. Supp. 634, 45 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 461, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2277, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-marienfeld-moed-1953.